3 My Dogs are Smarter than Me
After the light faded from the teleportation array, Ein was surprised to see his surroundings once more.
Around the array, as if surrounding it, the newly summoned wolves were kneeling and bowing their heads. One or two wolves doing so could be attributed to a coincidence, but if all twenty-plus wolves were bowing their heads, then it means that they have proper intelligence comparable to a regular adult.
After recovering from his shock, Ein immediately commanded "At ease" to the wolves. Whether the wolves understood or just guessed the intention, all of them raised their heads and sat on their behinds. Ein felt nostalgic about this scene as if he were back to training new recruits at the military base.
'These wolves definitely have high intelligence; they would definitely be useful later on.' Ein thought.
After confirming the situation of the wolves, he felt that his theory that "monsters in his dungeon have higher intelligence" gained more credibility.
Next, Ein wished to see what was outside his dungeon. To go outside, he first needed to go to the slime floor.
"Guide me to where the slimes are," Ein commanded.
Hearing this, a group of wolves moved to the side, opening a path for Ein to tread through. At the end of the open area, two wolves stood up and posed as if to guide Ein ahead.
He quickly followed the two wolves. Even though the dungeon floor was not too wide, it was enough to make one lose themselves in a maze for an hour or so if they were not careful. By his estimate, they had already walked about a couple hundred meters of meandering paths before reaching the cave opening to the slime's area.
Seeing the opening, the two wolves ran ahead of him. A few moments later, a long howl was heard. When Ein reached the slime area, he noticed that the slimes were all lined up on both sides of the path. Since the slime area was just a straight path without any bends, Ein could already see the light from the entrance of the dungeon. Dozens of slimes lined up in regular intervals like knights protecting the pathway.
'Did that howl express an order to the slimes to get into formation?' Ein wondered. His wolves are definitely intelligent, maybe even smarter than he is!
While walking towards the exit, Ein observed the slimes. Just by appearances, they don't look different from his knowledge of common slimes. However, observing the rhythm of their jiggling bodies, you can definitely see traces of intent, completely unlike normal slimes that jiggle without form or purpose.
Ein reached the entrance of the dungeon and quickly exited. The two wolves paced to both sides as if to protect or guard Ein. However, Ein failed to notice this subtle display of loyalty. His eyes were fixed upwards, towards the endlessly expanding heavens.
"There are two moons?!" Ein exclaimed in surprise.
Even though the sun was still hanging high above the sky, two large moons floated silently by its side. Rather, the moons were so large that it looked like a quarter of the sky was being covered by the two moons.
One of the two was of the same color and shape as the Earth's moon. The other, however, was more elongated and with an orange tinge. With the two shining brightly, it's probably hard to see the stars at night during a full moon.
'This place is definitely not Earth.' Ein was finally convinced.
The moment he heard the mysterious voice tell him that a goblin is a native of this world, he already had his suspicions. Now that he had found proof, he felt both relieved and discouraged at the same time.
"I guess my revenge would be postponed for now..." Ein sighed.
As he is now in another world, returning to Earth would probably take a long time. That's if there's even a way to return. He could be stuck in this world for all he knows.
"..."
Looking up at the sky, Ein strengthened his resolve.
"I'll definitely take my revenge," he said calmly, "but for that, I need to search for a way to return to Earth first." He muttered.
Since he was transported from Earth to this place, then there should be a way to return him to Earth. However, he lacked information. He even lacked any way to obtain information.
Ein doubted if there were even intelligent species in this world, as the first visitor to his dungeon was a dumb goblin. While thinking of a way to gather information, the wolf to Ein's left barked.
Ein turned to the side only to see the wolf drawing a circle on the ground. Then, it drew some lines around the circle, making it look like a stick-figure sun. After seeing this, Ein remembered something.
"Right, the orb! Maybe I can gather information from there!" he excitedly shouted.
The wolf that drew the orb on the ground barked once more as if telling him that he guessed correctly. Ein petted the heads of both wolves before he ran inside the cave once more. He quickly retraced his steps and arrived back at the teleportation array. Without hesitation, he entered. After a burst of light, he was once again inside the marbled room.
Quickly, he moved to the center of the room and touched the orb. As he had guessed, a menu popped up just like it does in games and novels. Seeing the menu, with a lot of buttons grayed out, he quickly tried one button at a time.
After an hour or so of playing with the menu, he found one possible way that may be able to return him to Earth.
[Selective Dungeon Entrance Relocation: Relocates the entrance of the selected dungeon to a location the dungeon master chooses. Can choose any world at any timeline. Price: 5,000,000,000,000 DP]
Seeing the price, though, he felt like somebody dropped an ice block on his back. His drive deflated instantly. Just thinking about how to regain the 10,000 points he had before felt like a daunting task; now he had to collect trillions of points.
The plan to return to Earth would be shelved for now. Seeing as how he can even choose at what time or date he will connect the dungeon door to Earth, there's no need to rush things. It's like owning both a teleporter and a time machine. And, as they say, revenge is best served cold.
While searching around, he even found a function called "Summon Aide." However, it seems like the summoned aide was randomized, just like in a gacha. What's more, a single roll costs 10,000 DP. A roll with a fixed rate of getting a legendary aide costs 1,000,000 DP to use. It was a straight-up daylight robbery.
Since Ein wasn't even sure what an aide could do, he decided to prioritize his safety first. He would need to upgrade his dungeon a few more times and add stronger monsters to his defense.
"For that, first, I would need to earn a lot of DP."
DP could be earned in many ways. One such way is by killing inside the dungeon. Depending on the strength of the killed entity, a certain amount of DP would get added. Another way would be to order the dungeon monsters to raze villages. Although the DP earned for kills outside the dungeon gets halved, it would still be much faster than passively waiting for invaders to enter the dungeon. Of course, this method comes with the risk of thinning the defenses of the dungeon, so it's definitely not all pros and no cons.
Another way is by letting invaders stay inside the dungeon. This is the riskiest, but also the one that earned the most DP. When an invader is inside the dungeon, they will generate DP, equivalent to 10 times the amount when you kill them, once every 24 hours.
"If I can make a prison floor and keep about 10 goblins there, I will be able to earn 500 DP a day." Ein wondered.
500 DP may seem insufficient for now, but if he increases the number of captive goblins, reaching a daily income of 10,000 DP may not necessarily be a dream.
While Ein was immersed in researching, a few goblins tried invading but were killed by the slimes easily. The slimes didn't suffer any casualties after the first one died. His DP increased by a small amount.
"First, I need a safety margin for my DP," Ein thought. "Around 10,000 DP should always be available for emergencies."
'No choice; I'll need to raid a nearby goblin village to earn some DP.' Ein sighed.
This will be his first raid as the invader, so he felt a bit nervous. He decided to send 15 wolves to raid, leaving 49 slimes and 5 wolves to defend the dungeon.
After giving out his order, the wolves quickly vanished into the nearby forest.
